


(this is where i want to be)

by yourhandiheld



Series: it takes two to tango (and four to make this home) [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, liverpepper au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourhandiheld/pseuds/yourhandiheld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eventually, Leon would have to realize that Cloud was here to stay. But Leon was nothing if not stubborn. (And as a new father, he was doubly so.)</p><p>Liverpepperverse. The early days, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(this is where i want to be)

**Author's Note:**

> i dont think anyone would be surprised that the first strifehart thing i end up writing is set in the liverpepper universe. trying to illustrate how strained things were between them but also how tired leon constantly was back when leon had adopted the twins wasn't something i think i could do, so i wrote this instead. anyway - enjoy!
> 
> (and if there's any confusion, liverpepper @ tumblr is, well, catalyst of all this!)

It wasn't like this was anything new.   
  
Inside the house—after so many months, with its half-furnished rooms and creaking hallway floor, still foreign and unfamiliar to him—in spite of the opened windows and the unfiltered nighttime sounds breathing into the rooms through it, Cloud could hear everything. It was hard not to be able to. But pushing past the feeling of frustration was harder. Even after their small bout of hushed protests, the barely-beginnings of a short-lived fight, of 'I'll-get-up-No-I've-Got-It', Cloud could feel it pulsating at his temples, licking slow at what patience he had left for the day.   
  
In the other room, Leon was pacing. The kind one did with a child in one's arms, at the last few minutes of the night, right before dawn and another round of inconsolable infant crying broke. Cloud could only hope there wouldn't be more shrill shrieking and tears; that would mean that Sora would join in too, with all the demonic synchronicity that the twins seemed to display, crying 'solidarity!' with their late-night fits as the bags beneath Leon's eyes cried 'no more, no more!' Cloud could read them well, demonstrating this newfound prowess of skin-reading when Leon slouched back into the room nearly an hour later, too tired to even shut the door behind him. He was exhausted; Cloud could tell. His fingers easily found Leon's after Leon collapsed onto the bed, sinking in with an drained sigh.   
  
"Give it," Cloud had to murmur, when Leon clenched his hand into a fist.    
  
"Can't. Gotta hold onto it in case—"  
  
"Give it." It wasn't a question.   
  
After some fumbling, the baby monitor was pried from Leon's fingers and deposited on the bedside table opposite his side of the bed. Leon's eyes followed it, frowning all the while. Cloud couldn't help but sigh.   
  
"Go to sleep."  
  
"But —"  
  
"If either of them cries, I'll be the one to get up."  
  
"But—"  
  
"It's not like I'm going to be getting much sleep anyway."  
  
"But—"  
  
"You need it more than I do."  
  
"Cloud—"  
  
 _"Sleep."_   
  
Leon didn't seem pleased with the proverbial foot down. "Why are you still here?"  
  
If Cloud didn't know Leon was running on two hours rest and a skipped lunch and dinner, he might have gotten annoyed. As it was, he did know; rather than respond in kind, Cloud settled for bringing a hand up, cupping Leon's cheek. The way Leon melted right into the contact made his heart dip, swelling heavily from the gradual weight of Leon's obvious exhaustion. His thumb found tired lines beneath tired eyes, tracing the sallow of it, tracing the sharper cheekbone after it. Leon had lost more weight. Cloud bit his tongue to refrain saying from whatever blunt observation about that was bubbling in his throat.   
  
"You gave me the other set of keys, asshole."   
  
"Right. Give them back."  
  
"Maybe when I get tired of you."  
  
Leon sighed, stung, but leaned closer in, shutting his eyes. "You don't have to be here, Cloud."  
  
On any other day, that might have prickled more than it did, but even Cloud was tired, and he didn't feel like fighting Leon's bizarre insistence of outsiding Cloud from his self-imposed new life of single parenthood. Not when Leon was normally adamant against arguing or discussing it, and especially not when Leon looked on the verge of a breakdown right in front of him. The last time he'd had one, Aerith had been the one with him, had probably murmured all the right things she had probably learned to say when they were young, before Cloud moved into town and became a part of—this. But that was uncomfortable to say and uncomfortable to feel; 'don't leave me out of this when I'm the one staying so you can let me in.'  
  
Leon's eyes were open again, reflecting night off their usual blued gray, waiting.   
  
Cloud mouth formed the words 'I want to be.' He said, instead, "Don't be stupid." He hoped Leon understood.   
  
"Do you work tomorrow?" Cloud asked, dreading the answer. It was a holiday, but with Leon nowadays, one never knew. He hated the crease between Leon's forehead after he'd asked, like he had just reminded him of an appointment at the guillotine.   
  
"Shift starts at 10. I'm only covering for a bit."  
  
"I'll drive you."  
  
Leon squeezed Cloud's hip, beckoning him closer, conveying thank you beneath the silent, uncharacteristically vulnerable plea of intimacy. Cloud did, feeling all previous frustration ebb away as Leon's hand came to rest on the back of his neck, grounding and steady for all that Cloud was the one who all this time had been trying to be Leon's rock—the irony wasn't lost on him. He eased Leon's lips open with his, licking slowly into his mouth, letting his eyes fall shut just as Leon's did, lashes fluttering closed.   
  
Perhaps it was absurd, rutting up together, shivering in the afterbreeze as dawn filtered through the open window in subdued hues of blue. But this—Leon panting against him, Cloud biting back gasps—was maybe exactly what they needed; Cloud, pressed down against the mattress, Leon, crouched low over him, finding an outlet—finally—for all the stress he wouldn't admit he was under.   
  
It was so simple. It was that simple.   
  
Trying to recall the last time they'd had sex at all was beyond him; all Cloud could think about was the way Leon pulled back, almost fully out, before thrusting again (and again, and again), and when another thrust didn't follow, he'd hiss "Squall" and "Asshole", digging his nails into Leon's skin, irate.   
  
At a certain point, it was all he could do not to cry out. Vaguely, he glanced to the side, at the silent baby monitor, second-guessing for a split-second if having sex while Leon was already so short on sleep was a good idea at all, nevermind the twins' habit of interrupting at the worst times. But then Leon angled his hips just so. Cloud snapped right back to attention, meeting Leon thrust-for-thrust, before giving up, letting Leon accelerate the pace, letting Leon lead it, letting himself be pounded into.   
  
It was easy enough to tell when Leon was getting close; Cloud knew it by the now-jerky movement, the fevered panting at his neck, the fingers grasping onto his hair. Cloud spread his legs wider, arched up higher, feeling his toes curl (and, distantly, hearing his own voice, desperate and breathy even to his ears) as Leon angled and hit that spot, repeatedly, over and over again, until it became too much.    
  
Cloud let out a strangled gasp, drawing his nails sharply down Leon's back, shuddering powerfully against Leon, who bit bruising at Cloud's neck when he came.   
  
They collapsed together, limbs tangling. Eventually, Leon shifted off, sinking into the bed. He didn't say anything. He pushed sweat-damp spikes out of Cloud's face instead.  
  
Feeling seventeen again, foolish and embarrassed by how easily Leon got him so undone, Cloud tried to respond, but he was still too overwhelmed to do much but nod. Leon, somehow having managed to follow Cloud's barely-lucid time-travel backwards, looked instantly young again, peering at him with a half-open eye, too worn out to smirk but having energy enough to give him a tired—but adequately smug—grin. And Cloud could see it, blurrily, the rickety single bed they fucked on for the first time, back when Leon was still Squall and when Cloud managed to have thoughts not entirely occupied by worry over this stupid man wearing himself thin all the time. It was the hair, Leon's newly cut hair that granted him this superimposed flashback of Squall, of seventeen, of an adolescence where the only exhaustion they knew of were the kinds called Medication that kept Cloud up at night.   
  
Leon kept watching him all the while, in his unfaltering way that never did cease to make Cloud feel so naked. That was the biggest absurdity of all—the only one; that the heat of Leon's eyes made Cloud's skin burn the hardest yet.   
  
"Go to sleep," Cloud said, mouth dry, for the last time.   
  
Leon blinked. The illusion of youth broke. The tired lines beneath his eyes were back and even his hand felt heavier, weighed down all over again—but his sigh, when it finally came, indicating that he was finally ready to give in for the night, was light, sated, relaxed. Cloud was okay with that.   
  
He would tell Leon off, properly, another time. For now, Cloud glanced first at Leon, asleep, then at the baby monitor, then at the ceiling. He closed his eyes, waiting to see if the morningsong of birds or the babble of baby talk would wake him first, thinking all the while that he didn't, didn't, didn't mind this. Not the exhaustion, not the frustration, not the crying, not the kids, not one bit. One day, Leon would understand. 


End file.
